


Finding Answers is Forgetting

by ScotlandEvander



Series: Shattered [5]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Anger, Confusion, Gen, Magic, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-15
Updated: 2013-07-15
Packaged: 2017-12-20 07:18:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/884512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScotlandEvander/pseuds/ScotlandEvander
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Here.”<br/>“Where did you get this?”</p><p>“I made it.”</p><p>“You made it?”</p><p>“Don’t sound so surprised. I made it so you will never annoy me again. Now, go somewhere far away and get out of my hair. Now.”</p><p>“I’ve never seen a guitar like this.”</p><p>“Out. Remember to put wards up before you start singing.”</p><p>“Thank you, T.M.” </p><p>The blasted child kissed his cheek and skipped off.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finding Answers is Forgetting

**Disclaimer: If you know it, I do not own it.**

* * *

 

“T.M.?”

“Go away.”

Tom waited for the snippy comeback or for her to continue on talking without permission. Instead, he heard a chair scrap across the floor and the sound of her shoes walking off. Looking up, he saw her hair whip around the corner. Shortly after this, the door to the library opened and shut. 

Stunned, Tom sat back and stared in front of him.

She’d left.

The silence of the library rung out, making his ears ring. 

* * *

“What are you doing?”

“Leave me alone.”

Silence.

Looking up, he saw her go across the Slytherin Common room and sit in a corner, picking up the guitar she’d kept from the stranger at the hospital. She settled into the chair. She hit the strings a few times, the notes softened from the manner she was holding the guitar. She plucked out a melody. She continued to play the unknown melody and didn’t start singing.  

Grinding his teeth, Tom went back to reading the book he’d been reading before she interrupted him. He continued to read about magical objects that store ones soul away from the body to prolong life. 

It was utterly fascinating. 

He wanted more information on these items, but even the books in the Restricted Section shied away from these wonderful objects. They were seen as “evil.” 

Tom hated the world’s ridiculous concepts of good and evil. 

* * *

It had been three days since Black had spoken to him. Tom saw her. She flittered around him, passing, humming softly, but she never asked him what he was doing. She stopped singing and dancing around. She had ceased to pester him. 

Something was wrong. 

He searched the castle for her one dreary summer afternoon. It was raining, causing the castle to feel muggy and sticky. Tom kept trying to talk himself out of searching for her, but he knew Black was plotting something. When he least expected it, she was going to pounce and ruin his work on his diary. His research into the charms he wished to use had stalled now she had stopped pestering him. 

And he had hit a road block on his research on the magical soul containers. He’d read every book he could find, yet still did not know how to _make_ one. 

Tom found her sitting in a window seat on the fourth floor. She was tucked into the corner, her legs tucked under her. She wasn’t wearing a skirt. She was wearing trousers. Tom assumed were part of the boy’s uniform as they looked like the ones he was wearing. She was wearing a plain button down dress shirt, her hair spilling over her shoulders and shielding what she was doing in her lap.

“What are you doing?” Tom demanded. 

She slowly looked up at him. He stepped closer to discover she was writing music. She had made her own sheet music to record the melody she was forever humming and strumming out on her guitar. There were other scraps of parchment in front of her with words scribbled all over them. 

“I’m trying to get this song out of my head,” she informed him, not at all bothered by his demand. “It’s been on mind since I got here. The words keep changing, but the melody remains the same. I hear it all the time, even when I try to sing something else.”

He noted her ears were rather red as she tucked her hair behind them. 

“That’s why I’ve been so annoying. Singing loudly and stuff. It was getting annoying, having this one melody in my head all the time. So, I gave up. I’ll write it down. I wonder if this is how Mozart felt?”

Tom quirked an eyebrow. 

Black moved, knocking a few of the pieces of parchment to the ground. She cleared a spot and patted it, indicating for Tom to sit. 

For some unknown reason, he found himself sitting. She showed him the parchment she’d written the music. 

“It starts off soft. Just one guitar playing.” 

She hummed the notes for him. It was a simple melody, haunting.

“It goes on for the verses, building a little louder after each. As it progresses I hear strings and piano joining in. That’s what this is.”

She pointed at different page that had a different arrangement of notes. 

“Then, before the chorus, the piano has a small solo.”

She hummed out the solo, dancing over the notes. 

Something strange was happening as she explained what she heard in her head to him. Tom had heard of musical geniuses before. He was sure the greatest composers heard music in their heads, the complicated arrangements and exactly what instruments were doing what. It explained how a deaf Beethoven was able to still write brilliant music. What it did not explain was how this annoying, seemingly ordinary witch was making him hear it in his head. Tom was a genius, but not a musical genius. He hardly knew anything about music other than the bare basics. 

Music was frivolous. 

“Then as the chorus is sung, the guitar joins, being the loudest. As it progresses, background vocals start.” 

She hummed those house opened mouth saying “Ah.” 

“The guitar and piano continue, joined by strings softly near the end.”

She hummed the strings melody out. In his head, he began to hear the layers she was humming out for him. He felt like someone was pushing something cold over his head.  

“The second time through the chorus, though, the entire band joins in. String, piano, guitars— basses, rhythm, electric, acoustic— and drums. It creates a huge sound, full of life and emotion. The background vocals also continue, building.”

Tom heard all this. He could not begin to grasp how this worked. He couldn’t feel the magic she usually produced when she sung, as she wasn’t actually singing any words. But each time she hummed it out for him, he could hear what she was describing. 

“Then, for the end, it goes off. All the other instruments die down, leaving the lone guitar behind.”

She hummed the last few notes of the song and trailed off. She smiled softly then looked up at him. He could tell by her expression she was waiting for him to respond. 

He stood up. He did not understand what was happening to him, nor did he want to grasp it. Without another word, he strode away from her. 

* * *

A week later, he stared at what he was holding. Instead of finishing his charmed diary, instead of trying to translate the next few Dark Arts books he’d discovered buried in the Restricted Section, he’d been working to charm a guitar. Tom told himself he was doing this in order to get the child out of his hair, to make her go away for good. If the melody was the reason she was annoying, he was going to give her a better quality guitar. She could play it and get it out of her head. 

Tom had started with the transformed guitar she’d gotten from some random person in the hospital waiting room. It was crappy. He made a better one. Not really knowing what he was doing, he began to add spells and charms so the object would make more noise, a bigger sound, play various instruments. It would be able to sound like a piano, drums, background vocals, different types of guitars and many other things. 

Tom had no idea if the idiot child could play it, but something told him her magic would tell her what to do. He poured some of his own magic into it, not knowing exactly why he was doing it. 

He had no idea if the guitar would work, as he didn’t know how to play. 

Nothing about Atlanta Black sat right with Tom. 

He did not understand why he put up with her. Why he did not kill her after she appeared out of the diary? He did not ask her questions about the future. He did not hex her. He allowed her to annoy him. 

He stared at the guitar in front of him. Tom had never made something for someone else. 

This made no sense. 

Nothing made sense.

Tom felt his anger build.

He stood up and stormed out of his room. 

* * *

“Here.”

“Where did you get this?”

“I made it.”

“You made it?”

“Don’t sound so surprised. I made it so you will never annoy me again. Now, go somewhere far away and get out of my hair. Now.”

“I’ve never seen a guitar like this.”

“Out. Remember to put wards up before you start singing.”

“Thank you, T.M.” 

The blasted child kissed his cheek and skipped off. 

* * *

Even with her out of his hair, locked and warded away in a different part of the castle, the melody haunted him. It wrapped around him, caressed his skin. He could see the notes jump around in his mind’s eye before sleeping. He felt her magic wrap tightly around him and knew she was playing the song.

He did not understand why he always knew when she played it.

He did not like it. 

* * *

“Tom, did you know there are people with such strong speaking skills, they enchant people each time they give a speech?”

Tom put on his blank mask and turned his head towards Dumbledore. It was dinner time and in the summers the inhabitants of the castle all ate together at one long table. Dumbledore had chosen the seat next to Tom this evening, much to Tom’s annoyance. Black was seated on his other side, excitedly talking with Professor Merrythought, who shared her love of music it seemed. 

“Some people mistake this power for charm,” Dumbledore went on, not waiting Tom to respond. “In fact, the more proficient the orator, the stronger the enchantment power can be. It is how one person can sway a whole country.” 

“Like Hitler,” Black offered, breaking her conversation with Merrythought. “I read he was a great speech giver. To hear him speak, you’d start to believe what he was preaching even if you were against it. His speech giving skills were the main reason he was able to sway the Germans over and get a lot of what he wanted.” 

Tom noticed her slip in tense, but no one else seemed to. 

“Correct,” Dumbledore twinkled at her. 

“He’s a Muggle,” Tom stated flatly. 

“Correct, as well, Tom. He is a Muggle. That, though, does not mean he lacks magic. He simply cannot access it as you or I am able to. Great speakers, great singers, great performers— Muggle or wizard— all manage to access magic. Muggles without realization.”

“How can Muggles possess magic?” Tom sneered.

“Muggleborns,” someone else at the table suggested. “Muggles can come from a line of purebloods. Squibs. They have magical blood, they are unable to access it though. Many Muggles have a little magic within, they simply do not realize it. It is how they sometimes do great feats without knowing how.”

“In the end, we are all very similar. We have different degrees of magic,” Dumbledore explained. 

Tom knew the old coot was trying to tell him something very different than the actual topic of conversation. Tom ignored it, though, and focused on the power behind words. Spoken or sung. 

“It’s not only the words, Tom,” Dumbledore said, using his creepy ability to know what Tom was thinking. “It’s the magic and intent behind what comes out of the mouth. You don’t need a spell to use magic. Take Calliope. When she hums, magic comes out of her mouth even if she doesn’t puts magic behind it. What effects people is when she puts her intent behind it, her emotions.”

“That is all great and wonderful, Albus, but you cannot force people to believe in something with this sort of magic. If that is even what it is,” one of the other professors started. “It cannot be harness. It’s a wild magic. It only enhances the emotions of those already hearing it. If there is any degree of sympathy, that is how the sway happens. I’ve heard Grindewald speak many times. It’s rumored he has this skill. I have yet been swayed to a degree where I will believe in what he does.”

There were a murmur of response. 

Tom thought hard. He stared at Black, who was watching the debate happening now with wide eyes. He smirked.

He had research to do. 

But, first, he had to finish his summer plans. Then, he would move on. Black, tragically, wasn’t going anywhere. He had gotten her out of his hair for the time being since giving her the magical guitar. As long as she did not make him mad, she would be safe till he could harness her power. He would not just use her for this power, he would harness it for himself. 

He needed to research how to tie her to him. Permanently.


End file.
